This invention relates to the area of puzzles, and more particularly to a puzzle having movable segmented sections.
Prior art puzzles include the "15 puzzle", which required the restoration of scrambled pieces to their proper order in a two-dimensional plane. The puzzle comprises fourteen movable pieces set on a base with movement allowed between fifteen possible spaces.
One of the most well known of prior art puzzles is the popular "Rubik's Cube", "Crazy Cube", or "Magic Cube". This puzzle consists of a cube, each face being comprised of a 3.times.3 matrix of small cube sections mounted so that each face could rotate about its center without the cube falling apart. Each face would initially be a single color, and therefore scrambled by rotations of the cube faces. The interior structure of the cube comprises a spindle having six axles. The central cube section of each face is attached to each axle and the cube sections retain one another without being attached to each other. The cube sections pivot around orthogonal axes.
Other prior art puzzles include devices such as those of U.S. Pat. No. 563,986 to Jones, and U.S. Pat. No. 636,109 to Bowers. The former patent discloses a puzzle having pieces or checkers movable in a figure 8 configuration. The patent to Bowers comprises a base forming four disks, each pivotable about its center. Each of the disks includes four segments, two of which intersect adjacent disks.